Feedback for Strava's new maps (OpenStreetMap)

Strava is actively working with Mapbox (the open source mapping platform that supplies us with OpenStreetMap) to make sure we offer the best mapping experience for our athletes.

Mapbox gives us the opportunity to create customized maps that fit aesthetically and functionally with Strava. With open source data, errors or missing map assets can be fixed quickly and efficiently, creating the most detailed and robust maps for cycling and running. We believe in the potential and power of maps by OSM and we're focused on giving the Strava community the best experience possible.

Where did Street View go?

Mapbox does not provide Street View functionality at this time. We realize this functionality was valuable for some athletes; we'll do our best to re-incorporate it when possible.

August 14th, 2015:

We’re 100% committed to making Strava better for our athletes, and we hear you loud and clear regarding this switch from Google Maps to OSM. We didn’t anticipate how strongly some of our athletes would react to the change and apologize that it was a sudden disappointment to some of you. We could have done a better job explaining our reasoning and bracing you for the switch, handling the roll-out, taking more time to work with Mapbox, etc.

It may not seem like it now, but we believe deeply that changing to OSM is the best choice we can make for our athletes and our company. There is enormous potential and creative flexibility offered by the new maps and we ask that you stick with us and continue providing feedback as we bring that potential to fruition.

Your reports on the quality of the maps, such as missing map data and satellite image quality, can be addressed. We are working closely Mapbox, our OSM map provider, on both satellite imagery and road data and we’re invested in improving your experience. By providing specific examples of satellite and road data, we can act quickly to update the map data.

We've noted all your comments regarding street view, and understand how important it is to you. The top use for street view seems to center around segments, in viewing segment start and end coordinates as well as viewing the road surface and surroundings. Street view is still available when creating segments, and it may be possible to return street view to other areas of the segment experience. We will have more to share on this soon.

Our designers are compiling initial thoughts on how Strava can leverage certain styles, colors and shading to customize the map experience. We are already incorporating the existing feedback we’ve received here. Please continue to send us your feedback on how the look and feel of the maps can be improved.

- The Strava Team

August 21st, 2015:

When you visit a segment page, you can now click either endpoint of the segment to be brought to the street view for that location. Or, you can select one of the options from the map view menu (pictured below).

This addition is not meant to fully resolve your concerns about the switch to Mapbox. We're doing the best we can to respond to your feedback quickly while still maintaining our commitment to elevate your map experience with Mapbox. It's going to take time and we ask that you stick with us, and we'll continue to take your feedback to heart and iterate whenever possible.

September 2nd, 2015

We've just updated our maps to support four languages: English, French, German and Spanish. Now, if you're traveling or viewing the map in another country, you'll be able to see map labels and place names in your language.

How it works: If you have Strava set to one of the above four languages, you will see map labels in that language. For any other language that is not supported at this time, you will see the default map which displays regional language. To change your language preferences, use the menu at the bottom of any Strava page.

This map update also refreshes imagery for the Satellite map in select areas.

October 22nd, 2015

We're excited to announce updated maps in collaboration with Mapbox, featuring an intuitive display of map data and activity-specific styling. Designed especially with runners and cyclists in mind, we focused on a visual experience that would relay the map information we believe most helpful to our athletes:

Offset road labels for better visibility along activities

Visually distinct running and cycling paths

Highlighted pedestrian areas, outdoor areas, and parks

Vivid terrain styling and high-contrast mountain areas

Lower map label density for urban areas

Major highways and high-traffic roads de-prioritized in grey

Added points of interest most relevant to activity on Strava

Contour lines and elevation labels on satellite view

This is the first of several map projects we are working on as part of our ongoing goal to make your mapping experience on Strava more accurate, informative and rich.

I never leave comments so clearly have been forced into action by Strava's appalling mapping. On a UK countryside race with many users using Strava maps - complete chaos - 80 miles from London and there are huge holes in the sub-standard mapping. Towns not there, features missing, blue for rivers as large as the blue route we were meant to be following. Many people lost and delayed - I am a premium user and would never use Strava routes again. Cheap useless mapping - Google maps in a different planet (Planet earth).

My problem, which may not be related to the change in map system, is that my recorded run map looks fine when I'm running anywhere else, but when I'm running in Inverness - once or twice a fortnight - my map is really weird, covered in numbers which are not related to road numbers. I've been in touch with the help desk who referred me to this page. Any suggestions?

I'm ok with OSM quality, but can we get back the option for full-screen maps? The old maps used to allow us to view the entire route on a full screen view. The small frame view does not give enough context.

Jean, I'd say the help desk wasn't very helpful because this thread won't help your problem. The numbers you talk about only seem to appear in the dashboard feed's map thumbnails but not are not there on the full map. Definitely a bug in their map thumbnail rendering IMHO and localized to your particular run. Quite weird.

I would suggest filtering the path data from OSM for trails that have designated access only. there are trails appearing on strava that have the access=no setting in OSM and this can lead to users attempting routes that may not be possible or may be against land managers policies.

When I finish an activity Strava uses a picture of the park, with trails, roads etc mapped out. It highlights the route I rode/hiked in red. Awesome! However if I open up my activity to look at it in more detail, or if I am using the gps while actually hiking/riding, the map merely shows whatever park I'm in as a green patch. No trails or roads marked on the map. Is there a reason for this? Is it possible to use the more detailed map by default?

If there is a way to have the bike/multi purpose trails displayed at normal zoom level, that would be great. I live in Madison county Illinois that has a large network of trails created by Madison County transit (MCT). To actually see these trails, you have to know where they are and zoom in to the third zoom level for them to display. So basically, the most useful information is removed when you zoom out to a usable zoom setting. Google maps lets you select cycling mode which then highlights all of the bike trails.

@David M, Mapbox does continue to update its tiles—they did stop for a bit last fall, but their latest outdoor tileset (click 'view live map') has many of my more recent edits in it. Not sure why Strava's tiles haven't updated, but Mapbox doesn't seem to be culprit.

That said, the OSM paths recognized by Strava's route builder are even more out-of-date than the map tiles, or they follow some sort rule-set I can't figure out. Either way, I agree—it's gotten pretty useless.

I've been watching the Strava router since I started OSM editing (because the trails and paths close to our home were poorly mapped). For many months the map updated with every edit, but the routing did not, and the routing began to bear less-and-less resemblance to the map, even for trails that had moved a bit rather than the new paths and connecting nodes. At some point I think Strava spotted this and it seems that the map is no longer updating either. The routing map and the visible map still do not match, but the match is not getting worse as OSM improves. This seems to be a sensible move as the mismatch between routing and the map is as frustrating as the trails not being there at all for me, and for some it is probably more frustrating because they have no idea why they can't route along a path they can see on the map!

It is almost 2 years since I started OSM mapping, so I am *really* hoping that the current pause is a temporary step while Strava build a routing base that matches an up-to-date OSM/Mapbox tileset...

It used to be that edits on OSM appeared in the Strava maps within 24 hours. Mapbox stopped accepting raw OSM edits due to vandalism, understandable since they now have some high profile customers who don't want end users complaining to them. At their recent Locate conference one representative I spoke to said they now have in place tools to validate changes and would feed corrections back to OSM. That said, changes I made almost a year ago have still not propagated to Mapbox and hence to Strava so maybe they are not quite there yet, it is afterall a complex problem to solve. The loss of this rapid feedback cycle significantly reduces the incentive to improve the maps via OSM.

Interestingly, I do see my edits in the Mapbox outdoor map but that's their vector map, not the image tiles. Well that's my digging for now, time for a bike ride!

When is Strava going to update its activity maps to Mapbox Streets v7? (https://www.mapbox.com/vector-tiles/mapbox-streets-v7/#overview) The maps that are currently being used are very out of date (for my area at least) and need to be updated on a much more regular basis, say every 3 months as a minimum. There is no point in me making edits in OpenStreetMap if Strava aren't going to use the latest tilesets from Mapbox to reflect those changes. There are OSM edits I made over 9 months ago that still don't appear on Strava, yet they do appear on Mapbox.

I am a kayaker that uses the app to track my kayaking. Unfortunately I can not change the headers in my profile to track and set goals for kayaking. Can you please make changes to the app to allow users to change the headers in the profile to match their primary activity. In settings, the user only gets two options, running or cycling to choose from as the primary activity.

Q: How come Strava always starts my map in Blanca, Colorado, when I have clearly listed my home start point in Black Forest, Colorado. Blanca is about 200 miles away and I have never been there. I suspect that there is an improper Geo Setting for where Black Forest, Colorado is located. Black Forest can be found on Google Maps as about 20 miles NNE of Colorado Springs.PLEASE fix that.

Totally agree with the last comment. Use Strava routes is only useable on the road despite the map being totally void of detail. It’s basically the most basic level possible. Zoom out and you’ve lost all road detail. When mountain biking it’s a blank white screen with just the line. It’s hopeless and totally unusable. I have to use other apps eg ViewRanger to follow trails. They actually offer various maps to use when navigating. Far superior. Come on Strava catch up. Add the ability to use a proper map when using routing.

The embarrassing part is that the data that composes the map is free from OSM—someone just has to generate a new set of tiles. There are probably some complications, the tiles are served from Mapbox, maybe they generate them too, each of those things probably make an update cost money. Plus maybe Strava has to process and incorporate some data on its end, IDK.

Still, a more compelling update for old and new users alike than, say, posts.

Strava gets its browser based maps from Mapbox. Mapbox used to update its maps from OSM every 24 hours - I know because that's how long I had to wait to see my OSM changes on the Strava maps. I loved it!

About 2 years ago they stopped updating so fast because of map vandalism. To understand the implications, read this blog https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2018/08/30/osm-condemns-vandalism/. The problem for a large company is that when this happens it reflects on them; it doesn't matter that they are using someone else's map in the world of public opinion. As often happens, a few bad actors ruin things for the many.

I remember talking to someone from Mapbox at their Locate conference in May 2018. They said they were going to put in a process to validate the changes. I don't know whether this has happened.

What I do see is that AllTrails, which also uses Mapbox maps, has a newer version of maps than Strava. I base this on an old OSM edit of mine showing up in AllTrails but not in Strava. What's interesting about AllTrails is that while it shows the new trail I added, they also show the old trail I deleted.

Now at the start I said said this is for BROWSER based maps. On iOS they Strava uses Apple maps and Apple maps as far as trails are concerned are useless. I don't think some of the people commenting here realize there is a difference.

I sense that Strava has lost some of its early mojo. UI changes to the app the mean more clicks to do operations than before, more "stuff" added that clutters the screen. Seems to be a common problem with maturing companies.

Coming up on the 3 year anniversary since Strava stopped updating their maps, that's some serious stagnation. This week a got a survey request from Strava, I was hopeful I could provide some useful feedback there, but they were only interested in brand integration.